


when april fades away, let's break up

by kyoonglights



Series: 사월, 그리고 꽃 (april, and a flower) [2]
Category: EXO (Band), Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I am so sorry this hurt me too, I swear I can't warn you more, Slice of Life, and i wrote it, angst like just really angsty angst angst, pls blame chen's lyricist instead of me I am so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 06:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20688782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyoonglights/pseuds/kyoonglights
Summary: track 02. beautiful goodbye (사월이 지나면 우리 헤어져요)he doesn’t want her to go, and it’s not like she wants to go either; she simply doesn’t have anything to stay for. (in which junmyeon realises, he can’t see the sparks behind joohyun’s eyes anymore.)





	when april fades away, let's break up

**Author's Note:**

> I apologise in advance

_at the end of april, let’s break up._

He watches her move in the dim light of their kitchen, while he himself sits motionless on the dining chair, leaning his chin against interlaced fingers, elbows propped on the table. He knows she’s shaking, because the sound of the glass of water she just put down on the counter is louder than it should have been, but he stays still, closing his eyes, focusing on his own breaths. He can hear Joohyun moves, then, the opening of their bedroom door, and the slam that follows.

And then, silence.

Junmyeon only finally moves when he can hear Joohyun’s soft, short breaths, running his hands through his face, fingers through his hair. She’s crying. The sound is too close; their bed is far inside their bedroom, so she must be behind the door, still. Perhaps she’s sitting down; Junmyeon imagines her leaning on the door and sliding down as she breaks, and his heart, already broken, shatters.

He stands up, taking their unfinished dinner, hers, a little bit eaten, and his untouched, emptying everything into the trash, and puts the empty dishes on the sink. He opens the tap on maximum, letting the sound of water drown the sounds of her muffled sobs. When he finally turns it off, dishes uncleaned, he can still hear her rugged breaths, and it hurts. He goes to the refrigerator to get a can of beer, a bottle of soju, anything that can numb him, and stops when he sees the last memo she’d left him.

_I love you, happy fifth anniversary._

_-Joohyun_

Five years being married, but it was their tenth anniversary—ten years since they met as college students, no longer too naive, but still hopeful of life, still hopeful romantics. Ten years of being in love, ten years of being on a pedestal, ten years of being perfect, untouchable—ten years of being the end of everybody’s jealousy; _Junmyeon and Joohyun, the perfect couple._

Nothing is truly perfect after all.

He sees a long envelope next to the memo, and his own handwriting on the white-and-blue envelope; _Let’s run away? Happy tenth anniversary. I love you. _The envelope with two return tickets to Phuket, a three-day getaway to the sunny beach, to escape the gloom of autumn, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It should have been easy. He even knew her schedules, then.

The tickets have expired three months ago, as have their relationship, it turns out. Junmyeon pulls both the envelope and the yellow memo from the magnets weighing them down, and moves to throw them to the bin, but decides against the small, yellow paper. He throws the envelope, and pulls his wallet out to put the memo inside. Joohyun’s pretty, smiling face greets him from inside the wallet. The photo’s a little faded, and she looks young there, because she had been—it had been her ID photo from their university days. She had given it to him, a couple months into their relationship, and without taking it out Junmyeon knows exactly what she had written at the back. _Junmyeon is mine, the person in this photo_, she had written, drawing a small heart next to it. She didn’t write -_Joohyun_ on it, like she did on the memo, as if she was writing a memo on work, as if there’s anyone else but her.

It aches a little to know that perhaps, it was because it wasn’t as genuine as the writing at the back of the photo.

Even though he can’t hear anything else behind the bedroom door, Junmyeon lies awake on the couch for the longest time, trying to think where things went wrong, the past three months. Or the past year. He thinks of the last time he can see the glint in Joohyun’s eyes, the last time she breathes his name as they made love. It’s been a long time, he concludes. He can’t conclude what went wrong, however—perhaps when he stopped giving her flowers on valentine’s, trying to defend himself because he bought her a lot other things. Perhaps when his mother started to pester them for children. Perhaps when he started to ask her to stop working.

Perhaps it went wrong long before that, perhaps she laid eyes on someone else, who laid their eyes on her like he did years ago. He thought he still looks at her the same, all this time, but maybe she didn’t feel the same. Perhaps that’s why.

Or perhaps, that’s exactly why—he thinks of their major fight over the unfeasible trip, about how angry he had been when she chose work over their five—or ten—year mark, about how he asked if there’s someone at work she’d rather see than him. He remembers the pain and anger that flashes on her face. Perhaps _his accusations_ are why. Perhaps that was the match that light up the fireplace, burning every log and coal—dark, dark coals of assumptions and fading feelings—that led to the whole thing lighting up in flames. He remembers the way he finally saw, in her eyes, the careful mask that hid the dying spark, finally fell, and he remembers realising, they’re not the same anymore.

He hears a softer bang; the sound of their wardrobe closing, and closes his eyes.

+

_let’s talk about all those things we couldn’t say_

_when the breeze flows, gently around us_

_let’s sit face to face,_

_and talk about our breakup._

Junmyeon doesn’t know why she agreed to do this, to spend this one weekend together, renting a small hotel room in Incheon near Eulwangni Beach, but he’s thankful she did. They’ve spent weekends after weekends apart from each other these past months, working overtimes, spending time with other people, to avoid being stuck at home, just the two of them. They started out telling each other where they would be, in short words, and eventually, neither had the energy to wonder where the other would be. He went home once in the early hours of Sunday, drunk out of his mind, and when he climbed into the bed, she didn’t bat an eye.

He didn’t know where she went all afternoon last weekend, but she came home right before midnight, sober, but red-faced and nose running from the cold. He didn’t ask her where she went, though he wanted to.

Joohyun still has a bit of a cold, it seems, her nose is red, still, but her voice has returned—in the limited conversations they had through the week, it was heavy, croaked. Their drive is mostly silent save for her sniffles, but when he asks if they should stop by the beach first, she agrees.

It’s never a good time to visit the beach in the winter, yet here they are. Joohyun forgot her scarf in the car, so he takes off his to put on her, and gives both his two hot packs to her. When their hands brush, Junmyeon realises he misses holding her hands. They haven’t held hands in a while. She stays still when he ties the scarf around her neck, and pulls her hair out, tucking her hair behind both ears.

“Thanks,” Joohyun mumbles, still sniffling.

“I’m sorry,” he says. _For everything_. “You’re still sick, but I’m taking you to a beach in a cold windy day like this.”

“It’s fine,” she answers, as they start to walk towards a bench table, “I like beaches, and we haven’t gone on a date in a while.”

When they sit, they sit face-to-face, instead of how they used to sit side-by-side, maybe months ago, maybe over a year or two ago. Junmyeon’s had a lot of time to himself, these days, that he can think a little bit more straight, can reminisce a little bit, when things start to go stale. It’s been a while, it turns out. They haven’t gone on a date in a while. They haven’t been in as much love in a while.

They don’t make small talks, perhaps because it’s cold, and she wants to get it over with more than he does. She brings it up first, the talk a month ago, that ended with her crying behind the door, and him sleeping on the couch for two weeks. About whether they were being serious. About whether anything is salvageable. About whether there is a possible other solution.

He wants to ask her things like whether or not she still loves him, but instead, to save himself the heartache, he asks about how they’re going to tell their parents, their families, how they are going to proceed with the divorce. In robotic, forced tone, Junmyeon discusses with her their shared assets and accounts, and how they’re going to handle things. Joohyun answers in kind, with stiff professionalism, a coldness people said she’s always had, but one he rarely see displayed for him. He sees her falter every now and then. She hides it by sniffling, and wiping her nose, blaming it on her cold.

They sit out in the cold for a long time, talking in technicals and calculations, like finalising a transaction. It works for him, because it numbs the pain and the ache in his chest, but when they finish, with a timeline set as if it’s a mundane goal, he feels his throat tightens and his eyes sting. He blinks, blaming it on the wind. After, they go to a restaurant; they eat amicably, no longer talking about their impending split, instead about light, normal things, like friends, like work. He makes her smile, once, when he tells her about the way his friend Baekhyun got drunk the last time they all went out; the Saturday he, too, decided to go blackout-drunk because it hurt, thinking about her, and their sinking marriage hurt, and he wanted anaesthetic. The smile is reserved, calm, and contained. He misses her bright, carefree smile, and realises he hasn’t made her smile like that in a long while.

It’s only when they’re off their coats, in their hotel room with a twin bed instead of a double one, that he booked in case she would want space. It’s when she asks brokenly if she could sleep on his bed, that his defences shatter like glass.

“Can we try?” She asks, stuttering and muffled in his chest as he holds her; he can feel the wet warmth of her tears seeping through his clothes. “I’m so sorry. Can we try, can we?”

“Joohyun, it’s okay,” he says, though it is far from, “it’ll be okay. You’ll be okay.”

Joohyun lifts her head, and wipes her eyes to look at him. “Do you want me to go? That badly, do you want me to go?”

Joohyun is beautiful. Breathtakingly so, always, even with her eyes swollen in tears and nose red like this, even in this mess, she’s still beautiful, still the same beautiful Bae Joohyun he fell in love, and still is in love with. He still loves her. She does too, he knows, but he knows, it’s not the same—it’s far from same, and he doesn’t know whether she’s crying over the years, or over her love that’s dying. Junmyeon moves in to kiss her, and she yields hesitantly, he kisses her, and it feels wet and sad and painful; his tears have fallen, too. “No,” he says finally, wiping tears away from her face, as her shaky hands do the same. “I don’t want to.”

But everything’s final, he knows, and she does too, and this is just a part of grief that they have to get through.

“Can we be like this, at least,” she asks, her hiccuping sobs finally slowing down to soft, shaky breaths, “can we try to be okay, until everything’s over?”

“We will be okay,” he says, a little too automatic. He’s always like that, quick assurances, quick encouragements, even if it’s baseless, if it’s almost impossible. He kisses her forehead and smiles, tracing her lips softly by his thumb. “Smile.”

Crying is tiring, very much so, and his head hurts but he knows she’ll have it worse, with her cold, and the way she cried more. She falls asleep quick, her shaky breaths already calming down when he’s still busy trying to wipe his eyes, and breathes steadily again. She’s clinging to him on the single bed, way too small for them both, but reminiscent of the way they huddled on each other’s dorm beds in college; only at that time, they were two young people in love, unbroken, happy. He’s been missing the warmth of her body against him on their bed. Junmyeon sleeps to the memory, feeling bittersweet, and dreams of Joohyun’s laugh, Joohyun’s smile, and Joohyun, on a happier time.

+

_when the winter passes and the flowers bloom_

_we said that we’ll be alright_

_but no matter how hard I try_

_I can’t ignore your dying feelings._

Acceptance comes easy, it turns out, easier than he’d think it would be. It’s easier to accept the sinking of everything, when they’ve tried everything to bring what once was to the surface, yet still finding it to be a struggle to float.

They did try, over the cold winter months, to rekindle the warmth of their early days—or the comfort of their later days, at least, yet Junmyeon knows it’s not working. He knows, because he’s been doing what he knew best to show love, yet she didn’t—instead of falling into familiar ways, Joohyun tried hard, too hard, perhaps to incite a flame he knows had died. She tried initiating intimacies in multiple different ways, tried starting fights, tried things in an extravagant, overbearing way that Junmyeon knows, is a result of her own frustration.

It’s tiring, and he’s seen her cry more times than he’s ever seen, so he asks her to stop, and to accept the way things are. He knows he has.

Because it hurts to know that Joohyun, his wife, his partner, his lover for ten years, is falling out of love and there’s nothing they can do about it, not even with all her efforts to deny it, to prevent it. It hurts to see her trying so hard to make herself fall for him again. It hurts most, though, to see her frustration with herself and her growing self-loathing and it hurts to see her cry.

So he asks her to accept how things are, to move on.

“Because I’ll be alright,” he says; a lie, because he won’t likely be, but he’ll do anything to stop her from hurting. “We’ll be alright.”

“That’s what you always say,” she says bitterly, sadly. They’re facing each other on the bed, a considerable distance between them. “I’m sorry, Junmyeon.”

“Don’t apologise. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

He hates it, how easy her tears fell from guilt alone, because he doesn’t want her to walk away with any ounce of self-hatred, of guilt, of frustrations. If she’s not happy here, he wants her to walk away so she can be happy; about himself, he’ll figure things out on his own. Perhaps. That’s how it’s always been, that’s how he’s always felt; her first, before him. Anyone first, before him.

He reaches out to wipe her tears—she’s not sobbing, this time, neither is she reaching out for him to hold her close again, she simply closes her eyes and lets his hand linger on the side of her face. She brings her hand up to hold his, and doesn’t let go.

What comes next is easier, for him to watch, at least, though not for him to feel. It’s easier to see her not crying, to see her smile, to see her act amicably towards him without her having to force anything. It’s both easy and hard; but it seems easier for her, anyways, and to Junmyeon, that’s what matters most. It hurts that it’s growing harder and harder, now, to reach out and hold her hands, play with her fingers idly, caress the back of her hands for no reason at all. It hurts that it’s starting to become harder, to reach her, to touch her, to hold her at all. It hurts that he barely feels he has a right to call her, to ask where she is, to ask what she’s doing, to ask what time she’ll be coming home; it hurts that she doesn’t do it to him either. But Joohyun isn’t crying again.

It’s baffling, though, how normal everything feels. The way acceptance makes everything fall back to the time before they cracked, the way the old routines, the friendly, comfortable animosity he now sees feels familiar, like it’s not new. It’s with a pang of guilt that he realises they’ve been falling out for far longer than they know.

+

_when april fades away_

_let’s walk away as if nothing’s wrong_

_so that our last goodbye will be beautiful_

_just smile a little longer till then_

_smile._

“Twentieth of April,” she says, when he asks her on what day the compulsory legal mediation between them and their attorneys will be held on. “Is that too long?”

It’s too short, in fact. “No,” he says, and she nods in response, “alright.”

It’s almost mid-March, the last of winter cold has melted already, and they’ve been settling a lot of things between themselves, all too civilly, that Junmyeon knows, both relieves and confuses his attorney. There’s not a lot of things anyways, the biggest one being their house, and next their two cars; it’s not hard to calculate the rest of their joint assets together. They first laid everything, documents and whatnot on their living room coffee table, back in the end of February, and sit on the floor discussing settlements of material things. It was absurdly easy, like working, and while the first time was stiff, the next couple of times it felt like a routine of doing their taxes and their monthly bills—only this time it was the last of it. The last one was the hardest, for him, at least, because it was the dividing of their one joint account; it had been opened with kids in mind, for their birth, their growth, their schooling. With their respectable jobs, it had accumulated a good amount—enough to school one child up to a private high school, at least, though along the days of their marriage some had been taken here and there for emergency purposes. But it’s not going to happen, now, and will stay as a dream for a long time.

It’s somewhat of a consolation to him that Joohyun had looked the saddest, too. It had been late at night, she made them both coffee, just exactly the way he likes it, with a half spoon of sugar and a spoonful of cream, and when they went to sleep, over an arm’s length of distance between them, Junmyeon laid awake on his back for a long time instead, trying not to imagine a future he once pictured.

“Maybe,” she says, a little hesitantly, “I’ll begin to move out this weekend.”

They had scoured for new places to live, separately, as they will start to put their house on the market. His brother had agreed to lend him his apartment, while Joohyun, whose immediate family are mostly in Daegu save for her little brother, who’s living in a student dorm in college, had decided to pick out a new place altogether. He didn’t know what the place would be like, only knows that it’s a bit closer to her work.

“Oh,” he says, because he’s a little at a loss. His stomach drops at the thought that time’s running out even faster than he thought it would be. “Do you—do you need help?”

She looks at him long, and wistful. “No,” she says finally. “Thank you.”

“Will you move out immediately?”

“No, I’ll move things out first,” she answers thoughtfully. “If it’s fine with you.”

His smile is bitter, but defeated, and tired. “You know this is your house too. Neither of us are forcing the other to move out.”

He’s been doing some work at their dinner table, laptop open and papers scattered, and lost track of time—when she finally comes home, it’s already eight; he’s been working for hours. His attention in work had been almost undivided, almost too dedicated, these past months; it’s the only distraction he has. He hasn’t worked in their office for these past months, her clutter and blueprints everywhere reminding him of a time where they would have worked from home together—they were usually only productive for the first couple of hours, until one of them gets bored with work and start to get close. They used to be each other’s biggest distractions.

In fact, now that he thinks of it, he barely uses any rooms at all in their house, barely goes to other rooms—their office, a bedroom that was ready to house kids, he even forsakes the master bathroom for her in lieu for the guest one outside. It’s like he wants to limit his thought, his pain, his memories of them in the house. They do share a bed still, though, and Junmyeon is too stubborn to give that one room up—because it’s where a lot of their closest, intimate moments are. The house is still young; it’s only four years old.

Joohyun walks toward him and puts her hand on the top of the chair across, not sitting. “Have you been working?” She asks. Her voice is a bit small, these days, like she’s not sure she wants him to hear.

“Yeah,” he nods, taking in the scattered papers and stack it together in a tidier bundle. “Sorry for the mess, go ahead and sit.”

She doesn’t. “Did you eat?”

“No,” he realises, his stomach had been empty since afternoon; he had skipped lunch, too. He’s been skipping a lot of meals, lately; his shirts feel a little loose, his belt going down one hole. But he’s not hungry. “But I’m not very hungry. Have you eaten?”

“You look like you’ve lost a lot of weight,” she says sadly, but she doesn’t look at him for very long. Joohyun walks around him to the refrigerator and opens it. “Can we eat dinner together tonight? I’ll cook something. Anything you want to eat?”

She’s always been a great cook. He always loved to eat anything she made—he’d tried, a disastrous couple of times, to return the favour, but she eventually banned him from the kitchen without her supervision, except for cleaning up. And baking, which he actually could do. On some lazier weekends or nights in on weekdays they’d spend a long time in the kitchen, spending thirty percent of the time making food, and the remaining just being all over each other. He’d miss it a lot, he thinks, the way she elbows him when he leans over her as she cooks, the way she sticks her finger in his batter when they bake, asking him to put in more sugar, because she has a sickeningly sweet tooth. Junmyeon closes his laptop, deciding that his focus for work is already broken, and he won’t be able to bring it back. Like a lot of things.

“Anything is fine,” he says, “you know I love your cooking a lot.” _And you, I love you a lot._

“We still have a bit of meat,” she answers, “would _galbi-jjim_ be fine?”

He agrees, and leaves her to put his things away, and returns to the kitchen, offering help. They keep a distance between them as Joohyun tells him to wash, cut things, and prepare dishes, and Junmyeon wonders if their kitchen has always been this big. It used to feel much smaller than this; they used to bump on each other, used to graze each other as they move; she had been the one who designed the space, like most things in their house, and he’d teased her a lot about it, about how what she pictured to be a spacious kitchen, still feels warm, feels close. She’s actually designed it exactly the way she wanted—there’s a lot of space, it turns out, a lot, so much so that he feels like she’s always far out of his reach.

Their dinner is quiet, amicable, like almost all things they’ve been doing together. They share about things from work, and about moving out processes. They’ve finished practically everything, except for small, less valuable belongings—trinkets and pieces of small and big memories alike, their photos, things they bought for each other. She asks him if they can sort those out tonight. Junmyeon agrees.

There’s a lot. Small photo frames, picture books. Joohyun almost takes out her jewellery box, and he has to carefully keep his voice from breaking, to tell her he wants her to keep everything.

“Let’s keep gifts as is,” he says, almost pleading. The watch he’s currently wearing is from her, too, silver chain and a blue face, that he wears almost everywhere. “Can we?”

“Yeah,” she says, sounding relieved, “let’s do that.”

It’s not the expensive ones—the gold, sun-shaped necklace and ring set he bought her two years ago—that he wants her to keep the most. It’s because he knows, in that box is a ring, a simple, silver band with no stones, that he bought on the streets for five thousand won, almost ten years ago, one she used everyday until he gave her a new one, a gold-band engagement ring with a single, glistening red stone, until he exchanged it with their wedding band. He unwittingly glances at her hands, and finds that it’s bare. The golden band with a diamond, that he has too, is no longer there.

For ten years they’ve been together she’s always worn a ring, a repellent for others, an anchor to him. He’s no longer has her docked, now, and the realisation is stunning.

He hadn’t realised they took a lot of photos. There’s probably even more, ones not printed, in their phones, in their computers, in their socials—Junmyeon has scrolled past his gallery, up to the first pictures ever, and tried in vain to recreate the memory as vivid as he thought they had been. He wonders if she’s already deleted everything with his face on it, in her phone; wonders how she’s going to clean her social media, to wipe him away.

But it’s been a month since he sees Joohyun cry, and tonight her tears well up as they sit cross-legged on the floor, sorting through their framed photos scattered on the coffee table—their first trip as a boyfriend and girlfriend, to Busan. Their second, to Daegu, with her parents. Their engagement photos, artfully taken by one of his best friends, Minseok, the way her smile shines in the moody shadows that is Minseok’s signature style. Photos of their families. Their honeymoon, in Japan. Their longest trip as a couple, the two-week getaway touring Europe, after a full year of working and saving up vacation days.

He tries to joke, because as he said, he’s tired of seeing her cry, and he wants her to only keep the smile. “Remember this,” he says, pointing to a picture of them, a bit lower in quality, as the phone cameras had been. He has his arms around her and is trying to eat the ice cream she’s holding, she’s the one holding the phone, laughing. They’re wearing silly headbands of bunny ears, because they were in an amusement park. It’s one year before they got engaged. “Afterwards, the ice cream fell all over my shirt.”

“Yeah,” she says, laughing softly, but she’s still wiping her tears, “and you still went around like that, we still rode the rides. I think people thought it was puke?”

“_You _said it looked like puke, and forced me to buy a shirt to change,” he counters fondly, “I didn’t want to, initially, because park merchandise are unreasonably priced.”

“But you made me change into a couple t-shirt,” she points out, “where’s the logic in that? You spent even more by buying two.”

He doesn’t really know where those shirts are; most likely, they used it as rags along the years. Unfortunate, he thinks. Call him a hoarder, but it’s things like those that he will most likely hold on to.

“Don’t cry,” he says, before he can stop himself. “Joohyun—“

“This is why I want to move out,” she blurts out, and it feels as if she’d slapped him. “I can’t stand seeing you, I can’t stand seeing us—it hurts, Junmyeon.”

His hands move on its own to her face, and this time, he can see that she almost flinches; they’ve been getting too good in keeping distance. But eventually Joohyun leans into his touch, as he wipes her tears again, for the unknown number of times—for ten years, he doesn’t think he’s seen her cry this many times. He ends up holding her in his arms as she cries again, with much less painful denial, much more resigned acceptance, and he thinks it’s a little twisted that if it takes her crying for him to hold her like this, he might want to have it. He pats her head softly when she’s slowed down.

“That big one, our wedding picture,” she whispers tiredly to his neck, her hands are clutching his loose clothes. Junmyeon looks up above the television, and realises he almost forgot that the large print of them in their wedding attire, had been there the whole time, her radiating beauty, in her white dress, her smile; him, in his black tux, beaming down at her. The big portrait is almost haunting, the happiness of the moment a ghost that can only witness everything crash down without being able to do anything. “Who’s taking it?”

“No one,” he says after long, deliberating silence, one where he can only hear her shaky breaths. She doesn’t reply. “In the end of April,” he says, craning his neck to look down at her, and she looks up from below wet lashes. “It’ll be alright. It’ll be okay.”

“I know,” she says, there’s no bitter resentment left in her voice. “You always say it would be.”

“Smile,” he says, smiling brokenly, running his thumb softly along her lips, barely grazing, “we had a lot of good memories. Promise me to always smile?”

She does. “Only if you promise me too.”

“I promise.” It’s going to be an easy one, he thinks, he’s someone who smiles to hide. Maybe for once, he won’t break their promise.

+

_if you turn back time to when we first met_

_don’t stand there, under the streetlight_

_don’t smile, don’t push your hair back like that_

_so that I can just pass you by_

_Fuck_, he thought, head barely functioning save from countless words of profanities running. He was running as well, towards the closest shelter he could see—the college library. He’d fallen asleep, absolute dumbass, past sunset, under a tree by the open field. He had been sitting there, lounging in the breeze with his friends as the sky was turning golden, which, by the way, fuck his friends. Who had the brightest idea to leave him and all his belongings wide open as he dozed off like a dead person underneath a tree? Probably Baekhyun. _Definitely_ Baekhyun. Minseok wouldn’t do this to him—wait, he did leave too.

Junmyeon woke up, and was immediately sent to a panic as he saw the surroundings almost pitch-black; and in his panic to gather his things _in the dark_, he felt water drop from the sky, and afterwards, what was on his mind were just curse words.

He ran up the stairs to the library in a frenzy, almost slipping from the downpour, and by the time he reached the lobby, he knew he’s definitely looking like an absolute mess. He could barely care. Junmyeon went to the bench, knowing that Mrs. Joo, the librarian, would go crazy if he dared step inside in all his wet-dog glory, muddy shoes and all. He opened his bag, where he haphazardly shoved a lot of his things, which had been scattered around the grass he’d fallen asleep on, and tried to do a mental checkup of everything. _Laptop, notes, phone, where’s my wallet, fuck—oh thank god, my keycard… Everything’s here. God, I’m killing those assholes._

He glanced at his watch, and was thankful it hadn’t been long since he fell asleep—it was only 6:20 PM. Maybe it was the rain that made it dark—then it clicked, and in another surge of panic, he searched his pockets, and frantically rummaged through his bag again.

His car keys.

He buried his face in his palms, groaning. It must have fallen somewhere. But _where_. Where he fell asleep? Or when he ran? He weighed his options. The rain was still falling hard, and it was dark, so he’d need a flashlight—well, his phone could do that, but the _rain_. His bag would be soaked to the insides, and his laptop, his notes. He could wait until the rain stop, but he had no idea when, and if his car keys went missing in the meantime, it’s done, he’s dead, he’s over, goodbye and rest in peace Kim Junmyeon, you’ve lived a fulfilling twenty years of life. He could go inside, risk Mrs. Joo’s wrath, to ask for an umbrella to borrow. Seemed like the best idea. He’s really going to strangle his friends one by one.

When he stood up, he realised that his whole show of stupidity might had had a spectator, and he finally, for the first time, felt self-conscious.

A girl was standing not far from where he sat, texting on her phone. She’s petite—he’s not very tall himself, just average, but even in his view she’s pretty small. And pretty. She’s pretty pretty. She’s really pretty, he meant, his brain felt like absolute mush. When she finally looked up at him, Junmyeon felt almost shaken.

She had a beauty that was almost striking, something almost absolute. She had bangs; really pretty, really cute, and didn’t make her look like a schoolgirl—_“Definitely no bangs,” he had told Minseok when they were debating on whether actress Kim Taehee looked better with or without her bangs. _And behind her almost overgrown bangs, there were a pair of the clearest eyes he’s ever seen. Her mouth, small and almost red and incredibly distracting, then formed a polite smile at him, and Junmyeon’s thought nearly scattered.

But he had something as important in mind, and he spotted hanging from her arm was a pink umbrella.

“Hi,” he said, running his fingers through wet, sticky hair and giving up despite feeling a little desperate, because whatever he did now, he’d look like a mess still. “Can I borrow your umbrella?”

“Uh,” she hesitated, smile disappearing, and ran a hand through her hair. Her bangs fell back messily, and, _wow_, Junmyeon thought. “But I need it to go back, so…”

“Yeah, I—I’m so sorry. It’s just, I dropped my car keys somewhere when I ran here and, it’s, it’s not going to be long, ten minutes, tops?” He asked hopefully, observing her hesitant expression, and almost immediately gave up. “Or, I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t force you to lend me your stuff—I mean, yeah. Um, if you’re in a hurry, it’s fine—“

She nodded, then, and he wanted to be disgruntled at how cold and unhelpful to a stranger the beautiful girl was, but he couldn’t, because really, how. She walked past him and down the stairs, two steps, opening the umbrella. He sighed; he had the worst of luck, and the worst of friends—he had thought if maybe, maybe from all this debauchery God would give mercy on him for having such shit friends that he had Junmyeon meeting a stunning and nice girl. He was thinking of letting his friends go, but it turned out he’d still have to kick their asses. Junmyeon nearly looked away when she called out to him again.

“Come on, I’ll help you find it,” she said, smiling. The light from the library lobby shined right on her face, and she looked kind of like an angel. “It’s dark, you’ll need an extra pair of eyes, and I’m going to walk to the bus stop anyways.”

Junmyeon stood there, stunned, and thought, if he didn’t believe in love at first sight before, he did, now.

They spot the keys not too far from where he had been dozing, but thankfully it did fell near the sidewalk so they didn’t have to step onto the wet, muddy grass. She was the one who spotted it first; he was a little distracted, to be completely honest. She laughed at him when he said out loud, _thank God, I get to live another day,_ and Jumyeon sheepishly told her his father would be really angry if he’d lost the car.

“Sure he would,” she said, smiling amusedly, “be careful next time.”

He offered to drive her to the dorms instead of taking the campus bus to return the favour, with a little difficulty, but she eventually agreed. Her name was Joohyun; _Bae Joohyun_, she said, a little louder to overcome the rain, as they walk towards his car, though he could hear her just fine even if she didn’t half-shout, because the space underneath her pink umbrella was small, so small that he had a hard time keeping his damp arm from not touching hers. She didn’t seem to mind. Like him, she was in her fourth semester. “Architecture,” she told him, and raised an eyebrow when he exclaimed in surprise.

“It’s just that architecture kids don’t hang out at the library often, do you?” He asked, “my friend’s always holed up in one of your class… studios in your building.”

“I was fetching a friend’s thing,” she said, and then retorted, “well, you business administration brats don’t usually hang out at the library either, do you. Not cozy enough compared to expensive coffee shops?”

He laughed, but he admitted he wasn’t even in the library; she looked on, amused, as he told her about his afternoon dozing off with his horrible friends below the tree, at the field. He knew she’s clearly thinking he’s dumb, but she didn’t look put off.

They exchanged basic greetings as he drove her to the dorm complexes, try to find mutual friends. There had been a rather insignificant few; but still, after he walked her to the door, he already got her number, and was already feeling giddy from—he didn’t know yet what. Maybe love at first sight was real. Maybe Baekhyun and Minseok deserved to live after all.

+

_even if I comfort you, and ask why you’ve changed_

_you drift away._

_so meet someone that’s better than me_

_I hope you can smile with him._

The closer it is to April, the more Junmyeon feels how quick time passes, how frenzied things happen, as if the world is so adamant of moving forward as fast as possible, when all he wants is to savour and prolong what is his last moments with Joohyun. It’s like he’s not permitted to breathe, not permitted to heal from a wound wide open; perhaps, this isn’t the worst his wound can get, yet. Maybe it’s only going to finally stop and slow down when the pain dulls, his consciousness drifts, as the wound lay unstitched, starting to fester.

First a third of her clothes, then half, then she only has a couple pairs left in their wardrobe, while his is full, still, like normal. Her drafting desk, from their shared office is next, and her equipments, clutters, blueprint, books. Then her small trinkets, like jewellery boxes, makeup bags, the things like pictures they agreed to divide, and everything else, until the house is almost completely devoid of her. She only left trivial things, like slippers, two scarves that they use interchangeably, that he knows she forgets whose—they’re both hers, she bought one herself, and he bought the other for her.

First she spend a night at her new apartment, because of work. Then two, and three. And next, he’s alone. Winter has already melted away, but it feels much colder than it is, now that he’s the only person in the house. Their wedding picture still hangs above the television, silently watching, while their smiles and happiness stay eternal, unlike the reality.

They don’t talk, now, save for about the proceedings of their divorce, about mediation dates, about papers. They don’t talk about even their work, don’t talk about her new place, don’t talk, at all. Junmyeon wonders if Joohyun thinks of him still, if she sleeps well alone. On some nights it hurts so much and she’s not there, as any other nights, he misses her so much, almost physically, so much so that the pain almost makes him want to die, and he thinks, so this is it, this is the end.

His phone rings on the evening of twenty-sixth of March, and he almost smiles when he sees it’s Joohyun, because he miss her voice so, _so _much; but he buries the expectation deep as he can. Her car’s broken down, she said, and the insurance is still bundled with his; can he drive down to her house, because tomorrow she needs to go really early? It hurts to hear her say her house, when he still lives in _their_ house, one they built together, filled to the brim with her ghost.

“Yeah, sure,” he says, “do you need a ride or anything?”

A lapse of silence; it’s quiet over the line, but he can hear a faint buzzing of the road, she’s already on the way, he realises, maybe in a taxi. “No, thank you, Junmyeon. Sorry for the trouble.”

_Is this what we are, now_, he thinks, _having to say sorry for the trouble, like strangers?_ He remembers their first meeting, how pretty she had been under her umbrella in the rain, the light from their college library illuminating her face. _Come on,_ _I’ll help you._

“Sure,” he answers, because he can’t say what he thinks. “And take care,” he adds, because now, they don’t add _love you_ at the end of their calls. Can’t, though it’s still true—at least for him it is. Very much so.

Her apartment is indeed much closer to her architectural firm. The complex doesn’t seem too big, but decent, and quiet, convenient. He knows it’s a safe neighbourhood, and he’s relieved; from now on, she’ll be alone, too, as he would be, and he won’t be able to keep her safe, only by praying. He hasn’t gone to church for a couple of weeks, he muses as he steps out of the car, the insurance documents in hand, preparing to call her.

She’s not answering, but a black SUV pulls up in the small parking lot—barely for ten cars—and it doesn’t park properly, simply turning its lights and engine off not far from where he’s standing. Junmyeon raises an eyebrow, prepared to think badly of the driver when Joohyun emerges, from the passenger seat, as a man comes out from the driver’s side. Junmyeon’s felt a lot of pain for the past few months, but never one as raw, as biting, as sharp as this.

“Did you wait long?” She asks, running up to him. She’s pretty, as ever, in her white blouse and cardigan—he got that blouse for her, one with a black ribbon hanging loose by the neckline. He last saw her over four days ago. He misses her, almost unbearably so. Words are forming and dissolving in his mouth like acid, bitter and tangy, as he tries to not fall apart.

“No,” he says quietly, but his voice comes out hoarse, like he hasn’t talked in a long time. He coughs to clear his throat. “Here you go.”

“Thank you, Junmyeon,” she says, pushing her fingers through her hair as her other hand takes the documents. “You’re not sick, are you?”

“Bit of a sore throat,” he lies. He wants to go.

“I’ve already put the car in to the auto shop, but they said some of the insurance documents aren’t complete,” she explains, he nods. He couldn’t care less about the car. “Oh. This—this is my coworker, Minho. Choi Minho, I’ve told you about him, I think. Minho, this is, um, Junmyeon. Maybe you’ve seen each other on one or two company parties?”

She stops, and he knows it’s because she doesn’t know what to introduce him as. He’s still her husband, he thinks despairingly, not yet ex. Maybe soon he will be, but not yet, not now, he thinks, a little desperate. “Nice to meet you,” he says robotically as he shakes the tall man’s cold hand, though it is far from nice. He did remember, she once mentioned in passing the names of the people in her firm, Choi Minho is the head of a different team, and they collaborated on a school building once. He remembered vaguely the tall, handsome man with large eyes and polite smile, that she pointed with his name on a company party he’d accompanied Joohyun to. He remembered not thinking much, and she, too hadn’t shown much, as she pointed to other people with their names, too, simply telling him about her work acquaintances. “I’m Kim Junmyeon.”

“Nice to meet you,” Minho answers in his friendly, deep voice. He retreats, then, to his car, and nods to Joohyun. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning. Good night, Joohyun. Junmyeon-ssi.”

Joohyun nods and smiles weakly at him as they watch Minho climbs into his car and leave, and Junmyeon finally feels the whole weight of everything crashes down; he closes his eyes to breathe, breathe, breathe, and to ease the stabbing pain in his chest that he can’t quite locate. Joohyun touches his arm, then, the soft weight of it feels like burning fire, and his eyes snap wide open.

“Junmyeon, are you okay?” She asks. He wants to bitterly snap at her, but the worry in her eyes is genuine, is true, and it does cools the pain a little, because it’s reminiscent of a time when he knows she cares. Now, he has no idea.

“Sorry,” he says, finding his voice cracking again, “a bit of a headache with the sore throat. Maybe just a cold.”

“Are you sure?” Her hand is still on his arm; he’s leaning a little to the hood of his car, he realises, like he needs support to stand. “Junmyeon, you shouldn’t drive. Maybe just stay tonight—“

“No,” he snaps, finally, and she realises, then, and she grows silent. “No,” he repeats, softer, massaging his forehead, “I mean, I’ll be fine. And I need—I have a meeting tomorrow morning.”

Joohyun doesn’t pull her hand away, but he can see that she’s hesitating, now, to talk. “You’ve been overworking,” she says, barely above a whisper; and the way that her voice almost cracks too is making his pain throb harder. “You didn’t have dinner, did you.”

“I did,” he lies again. He didn’t have lunch either. Meals are a little bit hard to keep track of, lately, he forgets them and he’s not hungry, so he doesn’t know at what time he ate, or at what time he should eat to keep himself from collapsing. He takes a deep breath and tries to stand up straight. “It’s late, you should go inside. I should go too.”

She finally retracts her hand, and he feels both relief and sadness, that a touch of hers disappears. They stand awhile, and he knows she’s trying to convey something. He doesn’t think he wants to hear it, now. He can’t—not without breaking completely. “Junmyeon, it’s not—he’s not—“

“Joohyun,” he cuts her off, and it pains him so much to say so, but he says it anyways. “It’s alright.”

“You always say so,” she says frustratedly, not missing a beat. She looks sad again, and he doesn’t want to see it.

“Because it is,” he smiles, at last, his voice is steady, whole, unlike him—who’s nowhere near whole, only a vessel with a gaping wound. “You promised to smile.”

She smiles, then; it’s sad, but it’s a smile, and at this point, he’ll take anything. “But you promised me too.”

Joohyun reaches out again, this time, to take his hand. She has small, warm hands; they fit perfectly with his, the fingers used to interlace like a reflex, automatic, muscle memory. He doesn’t do it, though, exercising the last of his self restraint, but holds her hand back, letting her thumb caress the back of his hand. She’s looking up at him with her clear, round eyes, and with her sad smile. She’s always so beautiful. He knows he’ll never find anyone as beautiful ever again.

“Can I—“ he starts, and again, coughs to hide the brokenness of his voice, “this Friday, or weekend, if you don’t have anything going… your birthday. Can I spend it with you? Just a dinner will be fine. If you want to.”

“Yes,” she answers readily, squeezing his hand. “Yes.”

Time passes too quick for moments like this, he thinks, even if they stay quiet, holding hands for perhaps the last time, even if it had been long, it still feels disproportionately fast, like everything else that’s been moving, not in his favour—perhaps not even in hers. He watches Joohyun walk to the entrance of the building, relieved that the front entrance has a keycard. He nods as her head turns, and she glances at him for the last time before she disappears inside.

He doesn’t go home right away, not before sitting in his car, and lets his smile fall. Not after he lets the pain crawls back, biting from the inside, stinging like a hundred needles, and lets himself finally come undone.

+

_as you drift away, you fade away_

_because we loved each other_

_let’s say our last goodbyes_

_I pray that before this time ends_

_you can find happiness_

_let’s not forget our love_

On their first date, he had taken her to walk down crowded street of Insa-dong, because he had guessed she’d like the _Ssamziegil_, the lightly sloping footpath of the building framing the main courtyard towards the roof. It had been a nice, casual date; they ate ice cream on their way up as they went in and out the shops, and at the rooftop, they ate the fish-shaped red bean breads. She did liked it, and he let her ramble about the architectural principles that made the building possible, and while he didn’t understand much, he liked hearing her talk, liked seeing her being passionate; he liked it the most when she smiled brightly at him—_Interesting, right, Junmyeon?_ It was, but he had to admit she was a bit distracting.

When they walk out, he had got her a bouquet of daisies from a street florist. Her response had been overwhelming, he thought he never saw anyone more beautiful than Joohyun, smiling down at the small, white flower bouquet, her cheeks slightly flushing underneath the streetlight.

On their fourth anniversary as a couple, he reserved them a dinner on top of the Namsan N Seoul Tower, and gift her a dozen of red roses. The box of the ring had sat heavy in his pocket, but he wanted her to be surprised, because he expected there could be another couple getting engaged in the tower-top restaurant—and he had been right. He had tried so hard to hide his giddy smile, as she looked at the other couple with faint jealousy, but she clutched on the bouquet of roses as they went down, and at the end of the night with the glistening skyline of Seoul behind them, he went down on his one knee and asked her to marry him.

Joohyun had worn a white dress and had her hair styled—it had been a once in a blue moon occurrence—and she had looked stunning within the dim light of the park, her eyes glinting from happiness as she said yes. The next thing he did, then, was to take his suit jacket off for her, and she laughed—_So this is why you’re not offering me your jacket even though I’ve been complaining it’s cold! The ring was in your pocket?_ She had looked at the simple ring, with its ruby stone, in awe, had kept moving her hand underneath the light for the rest of the night, as he drove her back home.

On their wedding day she looked like angel, heaven-sent, and he had been almost desperate to loosen his tie as he saw her, in her white dress that was so beautiful, one that exposed the milky-fair skin of her neck and shoulders. He nearly forgot his vows, nearly lost his voice, as he dazedly thought, _this is it, this is the person I’m spending the rest of my life with_. It was unbelievable, almost, how lucky he had been. Joohyun’s smile had been soft, shy, and she barely could look him in the eyes while he, on the other hand, had zoned in and out from the pastor’s words, too busy revelling and drowning in her beauty.

He was shaking, Junmyeon knew, when he slid the ring on her finger, stacked above the ruby-stoned engagement ring. When he leaned down to kiss her, everything in the world felt right, felt like a bliss, because he could feel her smile to his lips and because he knew that from now on she’s wholly his. The day was almost magical. She had held a bouquet of lovely, pure white baby breaths that she threw, and a friend of hers had gotten a hold of it. He kissed her again after that, and it was just white, just pure, white, eternal happiness.

Today he’s bringing her a bouquet of yellow tulips, bright and beautiful and she smiles when she receives it; they’re having a nice dinner at a popular restaurant, shares a half bottle of champagne. He realises she looks a little thinner, too, in her jeans and blouse, looking a little too loose.

Their talk is light and easy, comfortable and trivial, about work and weather and the food. She asks him about his friends, and he knows she likes them, and she’s not going to see them again, perhaps. He asks her about her family, and tries to ignore the pang of guilt as he asks, _how’s your mother,_ to her, when he’d called the same woman mother, too, for the past five years.

“They’re actually coming next month,” she answers. They’re eating desserts, now. Junmyeon’s been eating absentmindedly—more interested in the champagne, not really feeling hungry neither sated by eating.

  
“Where are they staying?” He asks, because he doesn’t know how many rooms Joohyun has in her new apartment. “They can stay at the house if they want to…”

“I haven’t… thought about it, actually,” she admits, and he nods. “Thank you. I’ll figure it out and get back to you.”

He’s going to have to remove the wedding picture soon, then, he thinks, dreading it a little. Joohyun’s parents have been nothing but the kindest to him, and he knows they’re heartbroken, too. Joohyun finishes her dessert, and sighs. There’s a thin air between them, a thin air reeking of last meeting and last goodbye, one that hangs above them hauntingly as they try to ignore it with small talk.

“Here,” he says, giving her a small, black box, “your birthday gift.”

She looks at him a little sadly, but takes the box nonetheless. “You don’t have to, you know.”

“It might be the last gift I can give you,” he says quietly, looking at how her hands shake a little when she tries to open the box, and again, feels a surge of pain in seeing the way her fingers are barren.

“Thank you,” she says finally, after a long silence of looking at the inside of the box with an unreadable expression on her face, and Junmyeon prepares to call the bill, though he’s not prepared yet for this last one birthday to end.

He had his wedding ring melted to a simple, circle pendant and had a _J _inscribed on it; he had the diamond stacked on the pendant and had them both hung on a thin gold chain. He knows she probably recognises what the necklace had been, but she doesn’t reject it, and simply for that, he’s thankful. He doesn’t really know whether the initial is for her, or for his own indulgence—a part of him that he wants her to keep, still, because he won’t be able to get it back ever again, nor give it away to anyone else.

They call a designated driver for they had been drinking, and Junmyeon also felt a little drunk despite not drinking anywhere near his limit—then again, he eats irregularly, lately, and perhaps the fact that there’s not enough nutrients in his body makes him get drunk more easily. He has the man drive them to her apartment, first, and they’re quiet in the ride, trying to let time pass more easily in this last goodbye.

But in front of her lobby, he stands unmoving, as he looks at her and hopes that she sees how much he’s hurting. Joohyun doesn’t seem to want to go inside right away, either, looking at him with her clear, clear eyes, both not knowing what to really say.

“Can you,” she says hesitantly, breaking the silence, “put your gift on for me?”

Junmyeon nods, and she hands him the box. He’s a little shaky, but alcohol-shaky, he reasons, as he unclasp the hook of the necklace. He’s done this for her an uncountable number of times, he thinks emotionally, as she turns around slightly and pulls her hair to one side, and he does so with practiced ease, to put his melted ring around her neck, reflexively taking her hair out and tidying it. She turns around to face him again, and fixes the position of the necklace slightly before smiling at him.

“How is it?”

“It’s pretty on you,” he tells her truthfully. Her wedding ring had always looked pretty on her dainty hands, too, and he thinks it’s a shame that it has to look this way, but he’ll take it. “Happy birthday, Joohyun.”

“Thank you,” she whispers. “For this, and the flowers, and the dinner.”

“Can I hug you?” He blurts out, almost unthinking, but he doesn’t take it back. Because he does want to hug her, to hold her, to feel her—to know that she’s real, that she’s once his, that she’s once filled his life. For the last time.

She doesn’t say anything, instead stepping closer towards him, and circles her arms wordlessly around him, and he can feel the bouquet of yellow tulips he gave her on his back. He wraps his arms around her and holds her head against his chest, holding her tight and close, a little desperate to not let go. She lets him, however, breathing slowly against the nape of his neck, as he tries to imprint her on him, for the last time, for forever.

“Promise me to smile always,” he whispers against her hair, as he kisses the top of her head. “Be happy, and thank you for being in my life.”

“Promise me the same,” she says, squeezing him in her hug, and then finally stepping back; he reluctantly lets her step away from his embrace, not letting go of her hand. “And promise me to stay healthy? Don’t skip your meals. You feel so thin to hug.”

He laughs. It’s a little emotionless, because, he bitterly thinks, _who’s going to hug me, now_. He slowly lets her hand go.

  
“Bye, Junmyeon,” she whispers, before taking her key card out to open the glass door of the entrance.

“Good night, Joohyun.”

He watches her step inside, looking back at him once and smiling before disappearing from his view to enter the elevator. It feels strange, he muses as he steps back inside his car, telling his hired driver to continue to his house.

It’s their last goodbye, and it feels strange. It’s painful, but dull, now, like his wound has been open for a long time and he’s already lost sensations on it. It feels strange to think that after this, he probably won’t ever see Joohyun again save from once a month, or less, only for things related to their divorce proceedings—transactional, practical. She’s been gradually disappearing, but to think that this is almost the final one is disconcerting, the way that they’re going to be separate entities from now onwards, and probably not cross paths ever again. Perhaps it’ll be better that way.

He thinks of her face, of her smile, of her voice, of her, all the way home. It’s strange, too, about their house—in a couple weeks he, too, will move out as they put the house on lease, and he’ll be somewhat homeless, will have a hard time saying where his home is. He’s tired, he realises, as he drifts in and out of consciousness. Each time he closes his eyes, he’ll see Joohyun smiling, laughing.

He sees her on their last anniversary before everything comes to ruins. He sees her threw a smile at him, in their kitchen as he leaned over and bugged her, when she was making his favourite dish on his last birthday. He sees her, walking happily on the streets somewhere in Paris, ahead of him, and looking back to reach a hand for him to hold, sees her laughing-screaming and holding on to him because the boat they’re riding in Venice shook a little. He sees her underneath the cherry blossom flowers, on their honeymoon in Japan, looking more beautiful than the scenery, sees her smile from underneath him, the white sheet of the futon in their hotel a contrast against her dark hair. He sees her, all in white, gorgeous and ethereal, in their wedding day. Sees her against the glistening light of Seoul city skyline when he proposed to her. He sees her in his varsity sweater, sneaking around and giggling in his dorm room. He sees her look up at him after smelling the first flowers he gave her, the hustle and moving crowds of Insa-dong passing behind them on their first date around the _Ssamziegil_.

He’s seeing everything, almost every memory of her, each time he closes his eyes, each time he drifts in and out of sleep, perhaps he really is a little drunk, as he doesn’t notice the swerves and shakes of the car as his hired driver tries desperately to avoid a collision from a vehicle running a light. What he knows, the last time he closes his eyes, he doesn’t see darkness—instead, sees something brighter than ever—and it’s Joohyun’s smiling face, illuminated by the light from inside their college library, as she asked him;

_Come with me._

He doesn’t know the driver fails. He doesn’t know anything, afterwards, it’s white. Bright, like Joohyun’s smile.

+

_you and me,_

_us,_

_together._

“Do you, Kim Junmyeon, take Bae Joohyun, as your wife, as your partner in life, to have and to hold from now onwards, in sickness and in health, in happiness and in struggles, for better and for worse, to love and cherish, until death do you part?”

“I do.”

+

**Author's Note:**

> dude.. what the hell why do I do this.. this was surprisingly (maybe not so surprising and I’m just dumb) emotionally draining to write. was jongdae’s lyricist okay
> 
> I’m so sorry oh my god I literally am
> 
> anyways kim jongdae is coming back so you all better prepare, and our QUEEN herself opened up her personal official instagram! her user is renebaebae how cute ㅠㅠ 
> 
> and! if you're curious you can search for the meaning of the flowers!!
> 
> also (last lol)! don't worry about flower (if you read that) I'm not neglecting it! I'll update it soon, it's just that out of the six songs in aaaf only that one has a somewhat positive note at the end and... you know, so I can offer a bit of consolation via flower if you read this (and the upcoming ones for the rest of the songs)


End file.
